The Creation
Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Dear
friends, We are sorry to say that our teammate Gianluigi Gugliermetto, who has been writing three DMs each week to help lighten Matthew's workload, will be stepping back temporarily due to health challenges. He is planning to return the first week of March. Please join us in sending prayers for his full recovery! ~~The DM Team |
Leonard Cohen on Saintliness, continued By Matthew Fox 2/10/2025 |
We continue our exegesis of Leonard Cohen’s observations on saintliness. |
The saint is grounded and earthy and following the contours of the earth—not angel-like and ethereal and airy. He/she is far from flying with the angels. Instead, she traces with the fidelity of a |
A digital seismogram of three earthquakes that took place on Fremont, Peak, CA, on May 9, 2000. Archival image from USGS.gov on Wikimedia Commons. |
seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape.* The earth’s landscape and history is solid and often bloody and unpleasant, but the saint traces its naked reality like a faithful seismograph needle. In other words, truth reigns. No escape—precision, care, fidelity, presence are what matter. Like a needle recording carefully how earthquakes shake the landscape. The saint goes deeper than the top of the landscape, to the depths where things can be both solid and bloody. The key is that he/she is “at home in the world,” no matter what is shaking and being shaken. Even if one’s house be dangerous and infinite, he/she is at home in the world. The house shakes, the world shakes, but one finds a home in the world and does not flee the scene. Courage and trust reign in the heart of the saints. |
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| They can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. They are at home with diversity and with diverse shapes of diverse human beings, and diverse hearts,
whether fine or twisted. |
The
heart comes in multiple shapes, and the saint is at home with all of them. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love. Cohen leaves us with his definition of a saint—a saint is “a balancing monster of love.” One who can be present to and even balance a chaotic world and live and work and love therein. A saint is taken over, monster-like, by the power of love manifest in an immense balancing act. Might that balance be between the via negativa and the via positiva? Between
falling in love and letting go? Between the light and joys of life and also the pain and suffering therein? One year after sharing these teachings, Cohen’s song “Sister of Mercy” came out. He tells us it was a rare song that he wrote in one sitting when he sought refuge from a winter storm in Edmonton with two sisters who were so exhausted they fell asleep on
the couch. He sat in an armchair while they slept, and when they woke up, he presented them with the finished song that you can see below. |
Cohen talks of how these two sisters befriended him when he felt he could not go on, how they brought him comfort, and also the song that he birthed. He confessed his woes to them, and his soul was refreshed. |
“Yes you who must leave everything / That you cannot control / It begins with your family / But soon it comes round to your soul” – Leonard Cohen sings “Sisters Of Mercy” (Official Live in London 2008) |
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem. The song seems to be a play on the “Sisters of Mercy,” a religious order
of Catholic sisters active where Cohen grew up in Canada. Some interpreters see in it two ladies of the night as well. He is clear that they were not lovers in the physical sense. But they did wrap him with love that is graceful and green. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you agree with Cohen that a saint is a balancing monster of love? What do
you interpret this to mean? How does it apply to today’s news and goings-on? And to yourself? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialogue, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. Books and More by Matthew and Friends! Be sure to check out Matthew's new store at MatthewFox.org, now offering books, recorded courses old and new, and special events... and don't miss our growing collection of books endorsed by Matthew on Bookshop.org! CREATION SPIRITUALITY CONVERSATIONS |
Podcaster Jon Wilson speaks with Matthew Fox about Creation Spirituality: how Matthew became a Dominican priest; his studies in Paris, Original Blessing versus the Fall-Redemption tradition; the Four Paths; mystics Meister Eckhart, Carl Jung, and Otto Rank; Eros, ritual and how ‘this is
wisdom to love life’. Listen HERE. |
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